823 
THE TBOPICAL AGKICULTURIST. [JtTKE 1, 1903. 
valued at 4J to 5 per lb. With oui' heavy 
freights it is a question whether cotton will 
pay to grow in B C A. The number of poiinds 
per acre, and the cost of landing this product 
in London including the cost of cultivation, 
when carefully worked out, by experiment, 
will prove whether cotton will be worth 
cultivating in B C A. The Manchester Cham- 
ber of Commerce has offered to spend £50,090 
in West or Bast Africa on cotton, if we 
can prove that it will grow to pay. This 
is a pretty canny offer from a wealthy 
Chamber. They might give the money to 
our poor Government to experiment with. 
Something mast be done for this country 
by Government, for it is going b ick sadly. 
Imports and Exports have dropped to about 
one-third of what they were five years ago ; 
so the future of the country is not at all 
bright. It remains to be seen what ovir 
new products are to do, for coffee is practi- 
cally a failure as a permanent industry 
owing to insect pests, and unfavourable 
climace. The exports of coffee will probably 
not exceed 200 tons this year, Five or six 
years ago it was up to 11,000 tons. We wanC 
Lord Stan more and Mr. J Ferguson here to 
bring B C A. into a state of prosperity— 
for it is at present just as Ceylon was about 
'8.5 '86 through the failure of coffee, owing 
to leaf disease— and, I may add, a number 
of independent Ceylon planters, who now 
l^now what failuv-e is or to be beaten at any 
Undertaking. 
Efforts are being made by 
OUR COMMIS8IONER, MR. SHARP, 
to get our agricultural products into the 
Transvaal and Orange River Colony, at a 
reduction of duties, if a free exchange of 
produce cannot be secured. Should we get 
preferential duties for our tobacco and tea, 
there is an unlimited market in South Africa, 
and it will pay well. 
Mr H Storey, a well-known Matale and 
Madulkelle proprietary planter, with his 
cousin, came to B C A in September on a 
shooting trip on their way home; and 
made an excellent bag of all kinds of 
game during their couple of months in 
the country. They were surprised to 
find that elephants could be shot a 
few irales off coffee plantations here. A 
planter, the Superintendent of Eldorado 
Estate, shot two small elephants in 
December, out of a decent sized herd, 
only about 2 miles as the crow flies from 
Mount Zion Estate. It would seem that 
elephants are likely to come back to this 
country (and be seen in herds of hundreds 
as in days of yore), now that their persecution 
has been stopped. H.B. 
THE S, I. TEA EXPLOITATION FUND. 
THE SALE OF TEA. 
The South India Tea Exploitation Fund, which 
has been orfjanised by the Travancoie tea planters, 
in doin;4 excellent work in the way of creating a 
taste for tea and popularising its consumption 
among the masses of this Frusidency. An interest- 
ing and practical schema has been set on foot, 
principally at the initiative of Mr H M Kiiight, of 
the Kanan Devan Planters' Association, to push 
the sale of tea in the Presidency so as to bring it 
within the reach of the poorer classes of the com- 
munity. 
Tlie scheme is based on the lines laid down by 
the Indian Tea Markets Expansion Commission of 
Calcutta, which is manageil for the Indian Tea 
Association by Messrs. Andrew Yule & Co. The 
object was to introduce the consumption of tea 
among the native population of India by the sale 
of both packet and brewed teas, and to achieve this 
end a certain number of planters contributed 
quantities of tex t'. be utilised by the South Indian 
Tea Exploitation Fund. In January last, Messrs. 
Parry & Co., as the Agents of the Fund, started 
the sale of brewed tea in the principal towns, of 
Southern India. They made arrangements for the 
establisluneut of stalls in various towns where tea 
is brewed and taken round by hawkers foJ sale in 
the streets. The scheme has been working in 
Mad ras and the mofussil for the last four months 
with considerable success. In this city brewed tea 
is being taken round to the Government offices and 
the principal mercantile , firms from stalls which 
have been established in all the principal thorough 
fare^. The sale is managed entirely by Brahmins- 
under the supervision of Messrs. Parry & Co. 
Brewed tea is sold in cups at the popular price of 
.3 pies per cup, which ought to make it available 
even to the poorest of the population. The sales 
have been steadily increasinu; mouth by month 
since January and promise to show a remarkable 
development in the near future. Through the 
energy and enterprise of Messrs. Parry & Co. 
packet tea and brewed tea are available at ex- 
tremely moderate prices in all the important towns 
of the Presidency, from Cocanada to Tuticorin. 
Messrs. Parry & Go. have taken the initiative iu 
this matter, and they hope that, now that they 
have denionsi rated the success of the scheme, the 
sale of tea will be taken np by petty dealers all 
over the Presidency, and the sale of tea and a 
liking for the beverage extended far and wide 
among those who have not hitherto been accui- 
tomed to drink it, — M 3Iail, May 5. 
PREPARATION OF GUTTA-PERCHA AT 
SINGAPORE. 
Thus the Sourabaya Oourant : The Nether- 
lands Gutta-Pereha Company ab Singapore, a 
venture set up in Holland, goes on preparing at 
Passir Paiijarig as much gutta as possible from 
leaves. At first it had much trouble in getting a 
sufficient stock of leaves. This is now no longer 
the case, and, as a rule, it can count upon a supply 
large enough to allow of a continuous and adequate 
oulput of gutta.— SYmi^s Times, April 27. 
INSECT PESTS IN INDIA. 
THE NEW ENTOMOLOGIST, 
Calcutta, May 3.— Mr Maxwell Lefroy, Ento- 
mologist appointed by the Agricultural 
Department of the Government of India, 
Arrived in Calcutta last week. Mr Lefroy's 
experience has been largely gained in the 
West Indies, and though insect pests, which 
trouble agriculturists in India, differ consider- 
ably from those in that quarter of the globe, 
training in a tropical country will give him 
immense advantage. — Times of India, May 4. 
